


burn

by deersnout



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Akaashi Keiji Needs a Hug, Akaashi Keiji-centric, Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Character Study, Emotional Hurt, Heartbreak, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, One Shot, One-Sided Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou, POV Akaashi Keiji, Pining, Sad Akaashi Keiji, Sorry Not Sorry, Third Gym (Haikyuu!!), Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love, fire symbolism for the aesthetic, vent - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:46:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26929114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deersnout/pseuds/deersnout
Summary: No, no, no.That’s not supposed to happen. Bokuto isnotsupposed to look at Kuroo like he hung the stars and painted the planets himself.For if Bokuto merely turned around to gaze at the boy behind them, he’d find that Akaashi looks athimjust the same; and then some.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou, Bokuto Koutarou/Kuroo Tetsurou
Comments: 5
Kudos: 69





	burn

**Author's Note:**

> HEYA LMAO I KNOW IT'S BEEN A WHILE!!! this was just a vent and it's short n sad. 
> 
> boohoo anyway uh go read "too close to the stars" if you haven't already, it's another bokuaka fic I wrote!! the next chap for it will come out really soon,, it's almost done i just have to beta-read n decide whether i want to split the fic into 3 or 4 chapters :T k bye

“Hey, hey, hey!”

The familiar cheer echoes through the walls of Shinzen High’s third gymnasium, and it brings with it a smile and the feeling of warm buzzing fireflies in Akaashi’s chest.

Tsukishima rolls his eyes at the owl captain’s antics, while Kuroo smacks an encouraging hand on the blocker’s back with a “don’t mind, Tsukki” rolling off his tongue.

As they continue their after-hours practice, with Hinata and Lev joining later so that they can split into 3-on-3 teams, the setter finds his gaze lazily drifting towards the Fukurodani captain to his left like a moth drawn to light (this happens often; it’s a bad habit that Akaashi can’t bring himself to break). He allows himself to take in Bokuto’s profile view for a brief two seconds before forcing his eyes back on the opposing team.

This happens a lot: the dreamy-eyed second-year will steal ‘casual’ glances of his upperclassmen during practice, finding the passionate focus glittering in Bokuto’s golden eyes to be mesmerizing. Though, he supposes, those owl-like irises are mesmerizing on their own, whether or not that volleyball-induced spark is present.

His hair looks soft, too, and looking too long at it often conjures the desire to thread his bony setter fingers through those charcoal-and-white locks. Akaashi had initially assumed that he gelled it up every day without fail in order to make it defy gravity so easily, but then he’d seen childhood pictures of Bokuto, and noticed his spikey hair to be the exact same.

The ace’s lips are probably chapped, like ashy flakes of wood peeling from a burnt log’s surface, but Akaashi knows he’d kiss them as much as he could anyway, given the chance to do so. Even just the thought of being able to love Bokuto so openly like that (and the small hope that ignites when he considers that maybe, just _maybe,_ the captain would love him the same) is enough to swell the setter’s rapidly-beating heart with giddy affection.

...Akaashi tells himself that he should probably stop staring and pay attention to the game now; it’s been well past two seconds.

The end of the match finally draws near. Akaashi and Bokuto’s team has the ball on their side of the court, so when Hinata digs the ball and sends it to Akaashi, the setter does what he knows best and sets it to his ace.

With incredible power— given how much they’ve practiced today, it’s a wonder the owl isn’t exhausted— the ball skims _just_ past Kuroo’s block and lands barely inside the court line, like a crash-landing fireball. A winning point for the team of owls and Hinata.

Exasperated and glad to be done, Akaashi turns back to his captain, fully expecting him to meet his glance with a triumphant cheer or smile, like he always does. But instead Bokuto’s fiery eyes are still trained on the messy-haired Nekoma blocker before him.

The second-year is patient, though. He waits, and watches.

“You damn owl… You just _barely_ got it past me, ya know,” Kuroo breathes, voice trailing in a breathy, affectionate laugh.

“Ha! As _if,_ ya cat bastard!” Bokuto responds, equally as out-of-breath, but grinning nonetheless. “Just admit I’m better than you.”

“If all you two are going to do is flirt across the volleyball net that _we still have to put away,_ then I’ll be leaving.” Tsukishima deadpans, an unimpressed frown accompanying his words.

 _Flirting?_ Akaashi’s mind echoes, and he whips his gaze from Tsukki to look back at the two captains, whose ablaze eyes remain fixed on the other. Surely that was a joke… _it was a joke, right?_

With fresh insight, the setter picks up on something he hasn’t ever noticed before: that same twinkle that brightens Bokuto’s eyes when he launches into the air to spike is undoubtedly there in his radiant gaze now, except he’s not looking at a volleyball.

He’s looking at _Kuroo._

Wide sea-green eyes blinking in shock, Akaashi tells himself he’s imagining it, but it doesn’t convince his overthinking mind. He looks at them both— really, really _looks—_ and finds that the charged affection hanging in the air between the two is anything but illusory. He can’t tear himself from viewing the moment before him, suddenly feeling like a horribly stranded outsider; yet the more he stares, the more his heart breaks.

The feeling of it sears through his chest like a heated knife, exposing the charred innards of his diaphragm and releasing what resides there. He is left a mere hollow shell, filled with dying smoke.

There wasn’t much in him anyway, he thinks numbly. He isn’t special, or important; there has never been anything living in the chasm of his being, budding and waiting to grow tall enough to bear fruit. He isn’t like that. He isn’t like _Bokuto._

Instead, he is a pot of dry, nutrient-deficient dirt.

Though, he imagines, if he _could_ form and nurture something beautiful inside himself, he supposes it would have taken root a year ago: when he’d first met the boy of his dreams. Bokuto had been the sun and the rain he’d starved for all along. A reverberating, reckless storm at first, eventually evolving into glimmers of amber sunlight that shone past the left-behind grey skies.

Then: a rainbow.

...But there are no rainbows on Akaashi’s horizon today.

As he stands in hidden agony, the boy can only feel the chilled feeling of rain on his cheeks. Except... it isn’t raining. And he’s inside.

 _Oh._ He must be crying, then.

“Akaashi-senpai?”

The dark-headed boy nearly flinches when he hears Hinata’s gentle voice beside him.

“Um... yes?”

The first-year’s head tilts as he gazes up at the setter, amber-brown eyes showing undiluted concern. “Are you okay? It kinda looks like you’re crying.”

Swallowing, Akaashi turns away from the crow. His fingers wring together as he tries to assuage the acidic feeling of anxiety and heartbreak overtaking his body.

“Fine,” he says. At least, he _thinks_ he said it aloud. Akaashi isn’t mentally here anymore. “See you tomorrow, Hinata-kun.”

His trembling legs, shaky from exhaustion or nerves or both, carry him out of the third gym and into the area of grassy hills behind the school. 

There, Akaashi sits with his sweaty back pressed against a heavy-set tree, and allows himself to feel.

The stiff, humid air makes the tears feel gross against his skin as he buries his face in his arms, determined to hide from the world. The image of Bokuto’s sunlight-colored eyes trained so intensely on Nekoma’s captain reappears in his mind, and the initial feeling it brought with it returns tenfold.

...Like a forest fire set ablaze with new fuel, an ache burns helplessly in Akaashi’s chest, lit by a radiant spark named Bokuto Koutarou.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos & comments give me serotonin & motivation <3


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